Life Is Short
by angel-death-dealer
Summary: Alternate ending to Grace Period. Tony realises that Paula was right, and that life is too short not to tell somebody that you love them. And he did.


"We were supposed to work the hotline this weekend

**Life Is Short**

"_We were supposed to work the hotline this weekend."_

"_Boss, you serious about that?"_

They were supposed to die.

It was supposed to be them, not Paula's team. It was a simple truth that they couldn't avoid anymore. Paula's team were in the building when it exploded because Gibbs had asked that they had the weekend off. It shouldn't have been them. They'd already worked the hotline two weekends in a row. They should have been at home with their families...with their wives, with their children. They should have been the ones called in to investigate the deaths of another team. Instead, Gibbs' team had been called in to oversee the investigation. They'd worked cases before where NCIS agents had been involved, but it had been even harder than any of them had imagined to investigate a case where it was people they were close to; friends, old partners, that had died. It was equally harder, if not more so, to work the case when you knew that you should have been the charred body thrown carelessly against a wall from the blast.

They were supposed to die.

"_I don't know how you can work with her!"_

"_Well, I worked with you, didn't I?"_

Great. Nice one. Remind her of people she used to work with when her team had just been blown up. Tony cringed, sitting in the front seat of his car, both his hands and his forehead pressed against the steering wheel. He couldn't have handled the situation worse. Okay, he'd played a big part in solving the case, no matter how farfetched his theory had sounded at first, but he'd gone on to prove that emotionally, he was still a five-year-old. He wouldn't be surprised if he started punching girls in the arm to show that he liked them. Everything else he seemed to do would fit in perfectly in a school playground. Paula had lost her team and what had he done? He'd snapped back with a snide comment about the time that they worked together. He'd tried to bring it back, though. He tried to tell her that he had changed since the last time they'd met.

"_When did you start being so caring?"_

Yeah, when did that happen? Something had changed, that was true. He still couldn't deal with his emotions properly. He didn't know what they were, exactly, or how to express them, but what had changed was that he knew now he was having them. He found himself lying awake all night thinking rather than drinking and taking home a random girl. He'd drift off into a world of his own, where a certain reality he'd much rather be a part of existed. He dealt with things differently now...he kept secrets. That wasn't necessarily a good thing. Secrets sometimes saved lives, but some secrets, most secrets, ruined them. He couldn't let that happen anymore. He couldn't let his secrets and lies ruin somebody's life, because it didn't take a genius to figure out who's life it would be that was shattered.

"_Maybe I wasn't as caring once as I am now."_

"_What brought that on? Or should I say 'who'?"_

Well, that certainly didn't take much thought. The longer he sat in his car, head down, he realised that throughout the process of dealing with Paula's body, calling her family, and finishing the case and paperwork, her words had been circling in his mind. What she had said to him when they examined the interior of the store together echoed inside of him, and all his words proved one thing: that the newly born emotions inside of him needed to be confronted. He could only make believe this was a fun fling, a barely-there relationship that required no commitment, for so long. For months now, many months filled with times of passion and times of disagreement, it had been an unspoken agreement that this wasn't permanent. That had to change, he realised. It had to change, and it had to change now.

"_Do you love her?"_

"_Yeah, I do, Paula."_

"_Wow, you really mean that."_

Yeah…yeah, he really did mean that. That was why it had to change. He loved her now. It didn't matter the reasons they had started their relationship, their fling, whatever it had been. It didn't matter. What mattered was that things had gotten out of hand. Things had developed, feelings had appeared. He didn't know whether it was reciprocated on her side, but he had fallen. He had fallen so fast that he barely realised he'd begun falling. The reason he stayed awake all night was because he was thinking of her every second that he wasn't with her. He ached for the moments where he'd see her walking towards him, the familiar gleam in her eyes and a repressed smile that always seemed to appear when she looked at him. He did. He loved her. But could he say it? No, he couldn't. He'd realised a few days ago, when he'd woken up beside her in the middle of the night that he could easily have done this every day of his life. He wasn't sure why he'd even woken up, but he was glad he had. He'd wasted hours of sleep just watching her, wondering if there was any chance that he could do this every day. But he couldn't say it. He couldn't tell her.

"_What's the problem?"_

"_I can't tell her."_

"_Why can't you tell her, Tony?"_

There were only several thousand obstacles in their path. He could sit and list them, but that wouldn't help him. He'd end up sitting in his car all night, and Gibbs would find him in his car in the morning still, probably on reason five hundred and twenty eight, mumbling something about differences. It hurt him inside, though, to know that the reasons were even there to list. There should be nothing stopping him from saying those words to her. It should be easy. It should have been the most important thing in the world to him. Nothing should have stopped him from waking her up that night and telling her seconds after he had realised it, but he hadn't. He'd stayed awake, watching her sleep, because he was terrified that if he told her, things wouldn't be fun anymore. It would all be serious. There would be real feelings to deal with, and that scared him. It was different having an argument when all you needed to make up was taking her out to dinner or a simple 'I'm sorry'. It would be different once the L word had been mentioned.

"_It's just three simple words: I love you."_

Is anything ever that simple? Especially about love? You couldn't just say it. You had to prove it. You had to look her in the eye and make her believe that you meant every word from the bottom of your heart. You had to make her believe that you'd never had a feeling this strong in your entire life. It wasn't something he thought he was capable of doing. Lying was starting to come too naturally to him. He wasn't sure she'd believe him. He wasn't sure she thought he was capable of the feelings he'd profess. One thing he was sure of was that it wouldn't end well. He couldn't imagine it ending up like it did in the romance films. Too much had happened. There would be no fireworks and magical endings. Like he'd realised before, on reason five hundred and twenty eight; differences.

"_You know, Tony, it's cliché, but it's true. Life is too short not to tell someone you love them if you do. And you do."_

He did. He really did. He was in love with her. He could say it in his head as much as he wanted, and when Paula had asked him if he did, he'd honestly answer her. Paula had told him to tell her that he loved her, and now she was dead. Life is too short, she'd said, and the next day she was dead. The irony of it made him sick to his stomach. That's why he was sat in his car, still in his parking space, and why he'd been there for three hours now. Paula had told him to tell her that he loved her. She'd told him it was the right thing to do. He might not have any time to waste with denial anymore. Acceptance wasn't the place to settle.

He had to do something, and he had to do it now.

Turning the key in the ignition, the engine of the Mustang finally roared into life. He raised his head from the steering wheel, taking a deep breath. He realised that there were tears on his cheeks, and he wiped them away furiously. Why was he crying? Was he crying for loss, or for fear? Because he'd lost someone he'd considered more of a friend than a colleague, or because at any moment, on any case, that could have happened to him, and to his friends. How soon would it be before they ran out of luck? It had already happened once. Kate. He hadn't seen it coming. He should have, but he hadn't. She'd been on protection detail for Gibbs, protecting him from Ari. She had already dived in front of him to protect him from one bullet, and he still hadn't seen it coming.

How soon until it was one of them again?

He'd ended up outside her apartment before he'd even realised he'd been driving. He cringed about how many accidents he could have gotten in or caused on the way when he was driving in this state. Again, there were more tears, but he wiped them away again. He shouldn't have come over, not like this. He should have waited for the situation to lay low for a while before doing this, but he couldn't now. Not now he was outside her apartment. She'd probably already seen his car pull up from the window. He got out of the car and went upstairs. Standing outside her door, he paused for a moment before knocking. Did he really have to do this?

Yes, he told himself. He owed it to Paula. She'd died, so he could at least face up to his feelings.

He took a deep breath again, and then knocked on the door. It was opened a few seconds after, and there she was. Her hair had been pulled back away from her face. He'd have to change that, he liked playing with her hair. She looked shattered, but there was no doubting she'd had a long day just like him. It was better being in a relationship with someone who understood what it was like to have a long day and how it could suck the life out of you. She understood that so well that she didn't mind when all he wanted to do was lie on her couch all night and just be near her rather than taking her down the hall to the bedroom. He'd never been with someone that he'd been happy to relax with outside of the bedroom until her. She looked up at him from inside the door; no greeting, no smile, just curiosity. Her eyes asked him what he was doing there, but he just stared at her. He felt the tears in his eyes, but they didn't fall so he left them. They weren't from fear or pain anymore. They weren't tears of loss. They were tears of truth. Taking a deep breath, his shoulder slumped. This was it. The truth had to come out now. He'd avoided death for one more mission, but this had been one that reminded him that he couldn't do it forever. He had to do something about his life now. Right here, right now. With her.

"I love you, Ziva."

She looked at him. For a long time they stared at each other and finally she reacted. Her lips curled up at the corners; not much, but enough for him to know that she believed him. She knew how this case had affected him because she had been there for the most of it. She knew that Paula's death was hard on him. She didn't know about the conversation he'd had with her, but she now knew the important part. She knew that he loved her. She knew that now. A weight of denial vanished off his shoulders as she took his hand, leading him slowly into her embrace. They stood in the doorway of her apartment, holding on another. His arms were wrapped around her so furiously that he was afraid she'd be the one taken from him next, and she was someone he couldn't bear to lose. She was a little surprised at the ferocity of his embrace, but she didn't fight it. She held him back, knowing that for tonight, at least, this wasn't about who they really were. This wasn't about being federal agents. This wasn't about hiding a relationship from everyone around them. This was about being close to each other, being with the people they loved to help each other through a startling realisation; that Paula had been right, and that life was too short not to tell someone that you loved them.

"_Is something wrong?"_

"_That was supposed to be us."_

"_But it wasn't."_

"_No, not this time."_


End file.
